Emerus plans for more micro hospitals | HLTH 2025

Las Vegas – Emerus has opened a host of small hospitals in the past few years, and more are on the way.

The company works with a number of health systems to operate micro hospitals, typically with 10 beds or less.

Next week, the company will open its 48^th micro hospital just outside Seattle in partnership with the MultiCare Health System. Over the next three years, a couple of dozen other facilities are coming online, and the company is also looking at new partnerships, says Rich Hall, chief growth officer of Emerus.

Hall talked with Chief Healthcare Executive® about the company’s success and its plans in an interview at the HLTH conference.

“We've had pretty exceptional growth over the last few years,” Hall says.

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

By the end of the year, Emerus hospitals will have treated 5 million patients, he says. The company just reached the 4 million mark in September 2024.

Emerus has partnerships with 12 health systems across the country, says Dave Hall, chief growth officer of Emerus.

They include the Allegheny Health Network, Baptist Health System, ChristianaCare, and WellSpan, among others. ChristianaCare just opened up a new micro hospital, ChristianaCare Hospital, West Grove, just outside Philadelphia in August. All of the hospitals carry the brand of Emerus’ health system partners.

“We exist 100% under the brand of our partners,” Hall says.

The hospitals feature emergency rooms with eight to ten beds, and much of their focus is on emergency medicine, but they do have some limited inpatient capacity. ChristianaCare’s new hospital offers 10 emergency beds and 10 inpatient beds.

The micro hospitals don’t perform surgeries or have intensive care units, so patients with more serious conditions are stabilized and sent to other hospitals.

Emerus’ hospitals employ a model built around telehealth. Nurses provide in-person care, but physicians see patients virtually. For some patients, that can raise eyebrows initially, but then patients are surprised at how quickly they are able to see a physician via telehealth, Hall says. Patients can also see specialists virtually as well.

WellSpan Health, based in central Pennsylvania, is building three micro hospitals with Emerus. The hospitals are slated to open in the first quarter of 2026.

“WellSpan has been an amazing partner,” Hall says. “They've got such an incredible brand in that market. And you know, like all of our partners, their mission and culture is so aligned with Emerus in terms of community-driven care, patient engagement, really prioritizing both the patient experience and clinician experience. And it's a partnership that we've been really excited about and can't wait for Q1 for these to open up.”

When asked if local communities have any misgiving about the heavy use of telehealth in the micro hospitals, Hall says that’s usually not a major concern.

“I think we live in a virtual world today,” Hall says. “So that piece of it doesn't bother them when they understand that the physicians are available to round on them almost immediately.”

But some local residents sometimes do a double-take when they realize that the hospitals are truly small.

“Most people aren't used to seeing a 20,000-square-foot hospital,” he says. “And so just the size element, they say, is that really a hospital?”

Emerus spends time working with physician groups, local political leaders, first responders, and other community leaders to walk them through the concepts and show how the hospitals work.

“We spend a lot of time with our health system partners as well, because they need to get a feel for kind of what we do,” he says.

Halls says they show prospective partners how the micro hospitals work in their communities.

“When people walk in, they appreciate the innovation,” Hall says. “We can run as dynamic of a clinical care model in a setting that is a fraction of the normal-sized hospital.”

The micro hospitals are usually able to treat most patients quickly and get them home. Hall points to door-to-discharge times in less than 95 minutes, and he says the company tracks those statistics closely.

The Emerus facilities offer emergency care in more communities, Hall says. They also offer an option for patients who need acute care but don’t need to necessarily be in a large trauma center, where they may have to wait for hours behind patients with more serious needs.

“A lot of the strategic thinking when we enter a new market is creating these new access points that were never there,” Hall says. “And so what that means for that community, is that they can get care without disrupting their lives, their families’ lives, school, and work.”

• Read more: National Association of Community Health Centers leader fears closures | HLTH 2025